Saturday, March 12, 2011

We leave Buenos Aires on Monday morning aboard a ferry to the Uruguayan town of Colonia.

We haven't updated anything in a long while, which implies a certain amount of business on our part--we're on vacation, after all. This is partly true. There have been periods of travel with little time to gather our thoughts. There was an amazing bus-ferry-bus-ferry-bus-ferry-bus trek from Puerto Montt, Chile up through Patagonia and to Bariloche, Argentina. It was a truly spellbinding journey. There was our time in Bariloche, which we loved, and then a couple days in El Bolson, which is now on our shortlist of favorite places on the planet. Then there was the 22 hour bus ride to BA--which, surprisingly, was very nice. There were several meal services, the chairs folded into completely flat beds, and there was tons of room. The best bus ride, ever.

- Our cabin in El Bolson, Argentina

We have had the past 4 weeks in Buenos Aires, some of the time which we have spent taking in the sights and walking the streets and eating the food. A lot of it we spent working, or writing, or cooking, or sleeping, or any of the other things we do when there is time to spare in a foreign city. We got to know BA a little bit; we had high expectations, which were met and exceeded, and were pleasantly surprised in addition. BA is a great city, and has much to admire, and much to return to.

- A public tango show we stumbled upon one Saturday

We've done a lot of walking across BA, and we've had some excellent food. Here's one example of that food, from an amazing pizza place just around the corner from us in the San Telmo neighborhood:

- a Galician pie, which includes such things as onions, tuna, olives, and delicious spices.

There were also some really great sights, such as Palermo where we found a rose garden, a duck pond, and a Japonese garden. Then there is the other side of town, the poor part of town, where can be found such things as this:

- La Boca. It's a little touristy, but once you get away from the sweating American and European tourists, you get to see another remarkable part of this great city.

There's history here in BA, as well. For example, I had a coffee con leche and sweet croissants (medialunas) at the oldest cafe in Argentina, Cafe Tortoni:

We're sad to be leaving this great city, and our wonderful apartment. But there's Uruguay, Bolivia, and Peru to come; there's many new wonders and experiences, and hopefully a few well-known and fondly remembered ones to re-visit as well.

It's difficult to say when we'll be able to update again, but know that our journey is incomplete, our travels continue, and we're following the whiff of experience and the call of wonder wherever it leads us.